Contents

Overview

The amount of damage absorbed during bullet penetration is affected by three factors: the surface's penetration modifier, the weapon's penetration power, and how far a bullet must travel to exit from the object.

Penetration Power

Each weapon has a different penetration power value which ranges from 0 to 300. A value of 0 means that that weapon will never penetrate any objects, while a value of 300 means it will penetrate harder surfaces for greater distances. The total number of surfaces any bullet can penetrate in a single flight is capped at 4.

Submachine guns, shotguns (except the Nova) and most pistols have low penetration powers (usually 100). The Desert Eagle is the only exception amongst the pistols, having a penetration power of 200. Rifles and machine guns have good penetration powers, usually around 200. Sniper rifles have the highest amount of penetration power which is usually around 300. Nova is only weapon that has penetration power of 0, meaning that it will not penetrate anything but glass.

Prior to Counter-Strike: Source, assault rifles, machine guns, sniper rifles, and the Desert Eagle were the only weapons that could penetrate through walls.

The penetration power value for each weapon can be viewed in the in-game buy menu.

Surfaces and Materials

Before Source, low caliber rounds were unable to penetrate unbreakable walls or props, such as breakable glass until it was broken or very thin wood. Thus, pistols (except the Desert Eagle), shotguns, and submachine guns should not be used for wallbang purposes.

The surfaces of objects the player shoots through and the materials they are made up are all related to the difficulty in penetrating.

When an object has a different entrance and exit surface material, the damage lost is calculated using the average resistance of the two.

A bullet loses some damage immediately upon making contact with the surface (a bullet with a lower penetration power value loses more) and continues to lose damage as it travels through the material. When a bullet loses all of its damage, it fails to penetrate through the material.

Wallbang tactics

You can either spray or burst-fire your bullets. Spraying is fairly risky as it can waste ammunition (although it can make it harder for enemies to retreat from volleys of bullets). Meanwhile, burst-firing should allow users to conserve ammo but it can alert nearby assailants and they can avoid being killed themselves. If you suspect a large group of enemies behind a penetrable surface, you can spray bullets at the wall(s) separating visual contact between you and targets or burst-fire and aim at the head when you have sufficiently practiced.

The most preferred times to "wallbang" is when enemies have retreated and have taken cover behind walls or props. This is when you can continuously fire at them without being killed yourself (unless the enemy is implementing the same tactic). Moreover, this is often used when rushing at hiding enemies is not a good idea, especially if they're armed with shotguns or Zeus x27.

Take note that "wall-banging" decreases damage so rifles with high-penetration damage, such as the AK-47, should compensate this. If one is close to an enemy player, aiming for the head is advised to deal maximum damage.